In the summer of 2020, representatives from Indigenous Maya communities on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula filed an amparo with Mexico’s Supreme Court. An amparo is a legal tool that exists in some Spanish-speaking countries; literally meaning “protection,” it allows citizens to suspend or halt a state-initiated law or project if a judge finds it unconstitutional. Similar to an injunction or habeas corpus, amparos are a way for citizens to stop the government from breaking its own rules.

The Maya groups argued that the construction of the Tren Maya, a state-funded tourist train, had violated key constitutional rights—Article 4’s “right to a healthy environment” and Article 2’s protection of “indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination”—because it destroyed forests, lakes, and aquifers. They also claimed that the consultation process, meant to take local Indigenous communities’ concerns into account before construction began, had been a sham. In 2020 and 2023, judges sided with their argument and granted the amparo, calling for the government to suspend multiple sections of the train line.

In the summer of 2020, representatives from Indigenous Maya communities on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula filed an amparo with Mexico’s Supreme Court. An amparo is a legal tool that exists in some Spanish-speaking countries; literally meaning “protection,” it allows citizens to suspend or halt a state-initiated law or project if a judge finds it unconstitutional. Similar to an injunction or habeas corpus, amparos are a way for citizens to stop the government from breaking its own rules.

The Maya groups argued that the construction of the Tren Maya, a state-funded tourist train, had violated key constitutional rights—Article 4’s “right to a healthy environment” and Article 2’s protection of “indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination”—because it destroyed forests, lakes, and aquifers. They also claimed that the consultation process, meant to take local Indigenous communities’ concerns into account before construction began, had been a sham. In 2020 and 2023, judges sided with their argument and granted the amparo, calling for the government to suspend multiple sections of the train line.

The Tren Maya was one of former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s hallmark initiatives. After he left office last fall, many international onlookers wondered whether his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, would continue or disrupt his mixed environmental legacy. Although both are members of the Morena party, which López Obrador founded a decade ago, Sheinbaum previously worked as a climate engineer.

Mexico’s Supreme Court defines the amparo as “a medium of defense that the people have to protect … the rights that our Constitution recognizes when we consider that an authority is violating them.” Until 2013, the amparo applied primarily to personal injury, used in cases of censorship or wrongful conviction. That year, a reform allowed it to also apply to cases of “legitimate collective interest.”

Since then, it has become one of the most........

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